Okay, so this is sorta a long story but please bear with me.
The user mexxyyy is a professional coder. Like, her job involves coding websites for companies and whatnot. She codes a lot on neo and she even has a CSS page (whitespace @/~xaia). She's been introducing new things onto neo like half backgrounds, block headers, this special mouseover effect on the usertrophies. These are simple codes/ideas, so she doesn't really claim them as her own, but Silent Serenity (@/~tines) keeps copying her. The owner of whitespace already contacted the owners of silent serenity but the silent serenity owners ignore the fact that they are copying her, saying (and I quote from /~tines in the "what we offer" section (awful grammar by the way)):
"A idea that is seen all over the net such as a horizonal menus, block headers, large fonts, large backgrounds, textures, half backgrounds, hovers, header transparents, headers, tab headers, footers, portfolio's, galleries, dashboards, lookbooks, scrapbooks, journals, photo albums, blurs I could go on forever here, is not an idea anybody can claim."
Which, I agree to an extent. But that statement contradicts with at least 2 other statements on that page.
Number 1: "No idea ever used on our site is not readily available on the web. Unless we created it ourselves using neopet coding *which we have many times, in many ways. Any content created by a user on neopets is used with premission or never used! New styles of coding will be used here hand made by us. No popular code that you see here is ever taken or used without permission."
Well, that cannot be true because they were not the first to make half backgrounds, block headers, or Mexxyy's special trophy hover effect. And they did not ask her for permission. Yes, mexxyy was the first and she stalks silent serenity everytime she comes up with something new because she knows they will copy her. Everytime mexxyy introduces something new, it takes about 1-2 weeks for the silent serenity creators to copy it.
Number 2: "Example A shop image code floated to the left by a user never seen before anywhere but neopets is a personal code if you take it you've just stolen a code. "
This basically says, "any lookup with #usershop img {float: left;} is a thief" which is ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS. That is one of the most basic codes to existence! There is NO way can you or anyone can claim that.
Number 3: "Example A petcode that has been user created such as *the big pet code* was created by fly and I using a overflow code, although others have used the overflow they never used it on a large screenshot. If you took the code and didn't use a program to crop it, (meaning you viewed source to get our code) you've also stolen. No claims to the image just the code."
They're saying if you put an overflow on a large neopets image, you stole the code from them. What difference does it make if someone uses it on a small image or a large image? They're both images owned by neopets.com. Anyone can grab any image they want and put overflow on it. Overflow is another basic code which cannot be claimed.
Well, what I guess I am trying to get here is, Is it okay for the silent serenity creators to copy other people without permission while claiming ownership over some of the most basic codes?